On the loftiest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own rump.

It is a certain sign of a wise government and proceeding, when it can hold men’s hearts by hopes, when it cannot by satisfaction.

No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or dispossessed or outlawed or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him, nor will we send against him except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.

The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws.

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses: they last while they last.

The Revolution is made by man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit from day to day.

Every country has the government it deserves.

Politics is the art of the possible.

Written laws are like spiderwebs: they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.

The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.

The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.

People revere the Constitution yet know so little about it—and that goes for some of my fellow senators.